DIAMOND RING

“Emotional and stunning… the sexiest book about various kinds of grief you're ever likely to read.” —Cat Sebastian, author of We Could Be So Good

“KD Casey writes quiet, emotional, deeply romantic books that are impossible to put down. Diamond Ring might be the best sports romance I have ever read.” —Rachel Reid, USA Today bestselling author of Heated Rivalry and The Long Game

“Casey's writing is unparalleled: immersive and atmospheric, it immediately places the reader inside the characters' worlds with intimacy and skill, a pulsing presence that pulls you in and makes you feel safe. As with all their work, Diamond Ring paints a portrait of both baseball and queer love that is tender and complex, full of tension, thoughtful explorations of mental health and family, and sparking-from-the-first-chapter-chemistry that made me unable to put it down until I'd finished.” —Anita Kelly, author of Something Wild & Wonderful

Estranged former teammates reunite for one last run at a championship, fanning old resentments and old sparks between them. 

Jake Fischer has been here before: pitching for the Oakland Elephants, hiding his worries behind a smile, hoping to win it all. Ten years ago, it didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Nothing in his life did. But now he’s back—and so is the one teammate tied inexorably to his past.

It doesn’t matter how many times catcher Alex Angelides replays that moment during the Fall Classic over in his mind: the outcome never changes. He’s not sure what happened to make that pitch glance off his glove, or what happened with his relationship with Jake—and he’s not going to be the one to ask. 

A whole lot may have changed in the last decade, but some things have stayed the same. Jake and Alex still can’t stay out of each other’s faces on the field—or out of each other’s beds off of it. They’ve got a second chance to win it all… but only if they realize what they lost.

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Excerpt

Alex spends his first few hours in the big leagues with his shoulders up around his ears.

He drives in from Salt Lake City, a ten-hour slog that leaves him checking into a hotel at dawn. It’s not like he could sleep. His stomach aches from black coffee, a couple stay-awake cigarettes, adrenaline.

He’s not expecting much fanfare when he gets to the ballpark. Security asks his name, then asks his name again, then says, “Oh, yeah, we got an Angelides,” mispronouncing it as angel and not angle. They wave him in, not telling him anything other than the vague direction of the Elephants clubhouse.

When he gets there, the door demands a lock code. One he doesn’t have. He waits. Maybe security is letting someone know he’s here. No one comes. The hallway he’s waiting in is a little dank. He’s heard stories about the Elephants Coliseum that are apparently true—its peeling paint, its smell like the alley behind a bar. Kind of punk rock.

He scrolls through his phone, looking for any numbers that might be useful, finding none. His minor-league manager delivered the news about his call-up in person. No one from the Elephants has made contact since then. Maybe it’s a prank.

His Aunt Sofia is flying out, along with his cousin Evie, to see him. It’s possible that there’s been a mix-up. That the Elephants somehow meant to call up another catcher named Alex Angelides who plays for their triple-A team.

A few more minutes pass. Anger starts to build. Annoyance that they’re leaving him out here. At himself for assuming that the team would take care of things. That he expected anything beyond an attaboy and a better get driving from his manager.

A cluster of people—personnel wearing team-branded lanyards—interrupts his stewing. With them is a guy built like a pitcher—lanky, broad-shouldered, with wavy red-brown hair barely concealed under a hat. His expression is also spilling out, a mix of nerves and incandescent joy. Right. Must be Jake Fischer. Because that’s all sports radio talked about on Alex’s long drive west.

A team employee, juggling two phones and an air of his own importance, gives Alex the eye. “Can I help you?” His nostril curls slightly.

Before Alex can spit that he’s also gotten called up, someone in the entourage swipes their badge and unlocks the door, sending the whole mess of them spilling into the clubhouse in an excited chatter.

The door almost swings shut, locking Alex out again; he sticks out his foot, grimacing as the door lands heavily on his sneaker, then follows the group. Phone Guy is busy pointing out various clubhouse features—weight rooms and massage rooms and meal prep areas where catering provides two spreads a day—to Fischer, who’s nodding like there’s going to be a quiz or possibly a Mr. Congeniality award.

At the center of the clubhouse sits the changing area: a ring of wooden-backed stalls each with a player’s name on a placard. Fischer one reads. A blank next to it, stall empty except for a few unlettered jerseys. That must be where they’re parking Alex.

Alex isn’t jealous. Being jealous would be dangerously close to giving a fuck about Fischer, which Alex firmly does not. Except his being here probably means Alex won’t get to play tonight. They wouldn’t pair an inexperienced catcher with the Jake Fischer, newly arrived from their double-A team, where they stash all the high-value prospects, and Oakland’s bright hope for its pitching future. So Alex’s aunt and cousin flew out to watch him ride the pine. Great.

Alex drops his stuff at the placardless stall, a printout on the shelf confirming that he’s in the right place. He begins unloading things. If he tosses his socks onto a shelf with a little too much force, no one’s paying attention to him anyway.

Every eye in the room remains focused on Fischer. They haven’t met before. Alex signed with the Elephants right at the end of spring training after being released from the Blues minor-league system, and guys like Fischer don’t really deign to greet new arrivals to camp, especially not third-string catchers. In person, Fischer is tall—at least a head taller than Alex, whose scouting report reads a slightly exaggerated 5ꞌ9"—and hunched like he’s trying to hide it, with a toothpaste-commercial grin and eyes that are either gray or green and seem to change color every time Alex looks at him. He’s handsome for a straight guy and about as threatening as a glass of skim milk.

Alex hates him, not even for anything he’s saying—which is all “yes, ma’am” this and “no, sir” that—but for how everyone is so busy fawning over him they might as well shove Alex into a corner.

They practically do. In addition to the team personnel, a camera crew is erecting lights like this is a movie set, if movie sets smelled like the inside of a cleat. A camera operator shoos Alex, telling him he’s obstructing their shot. He’s about to go figure out what to do for the next several hours when another team employee stops him. “Wait, you’re Angelides, right?”

She’s short, about his height but in towering platform heels. Her name badge reads Stephanie Guzman; her hair is streaked an electric shade of blue. Finally, someone normal. Particularly amid professional ballplayers, who mostly have the personalities of office-appropriate khakis.

Fischer might be the khaki-est of them all because he taps Stephanie’s shoulder and asks if the chair at his stall is for him. As if it could possibly be for anyone else.

Alex is about to hightail it to the weight room when Stephanie grabs his shirtsleeve in a surprisingly firm grip. “You just got called up today too, right?”

Alex doesn’t trust himself to say anything that’s not mostly swearing, so he nods.

“Great.” Her smile goes from bright to sharklike. “Two rookies. We’ll do this together.”

They bring over another chair. When Fischer sees what they’re doing, he moves the existing chair to accommodate them both. The kind of thing that’d make Sofia call him a nice young man, though coming from her, it wouldn’t be a compliment.

Before Alex can sit, Stephanie gives him another once-over. “You don’t have another shirt, do you?”

And he changed from the one he wore driving in, and showered and shaved at the hotel, even if that only keeps his dark stubble at bay for a few hours. Next to Fischer’s wholesomeness, he probably looks rough.

Fischer, for his part, hasn’t sat down yet. He lopes up to Alex, extends a paw of a hand, and shakes Alex’s like they’re at a business meeting. “Which chair do you want?” Fischer asks.

Sofia believes in numerology, to the point where she won’t even park in a space with an inauspicious number. Alex resists the urge to examine the chair’s serial numbers and picks the one on the left, Fischer smiling like he’s done more than sit his ass down.

Fischer drops into the other chair then immediately starts drumming his hands on his legs. “This is exciting.” He seems sincere. It makes Alex wonder if he ever got stuffed in a locker, though, given his size, his status as an ace-in-the-making, probably not. People probably find his enthusiasm endearing. Then again people find golden retrievers endearing. Sofia has a yard full of diffident cats and Alex, taken in as yet another stray.

“Did they tell you what they were going to ask us?” Fischer asks.

Alex amends his previous assessment of him to the kid who probably wiped tables down for the teacher and got extra helpings in the cafeteria. If he even ate cafeteria food. Wherever he’s from likely has better food than what Alex remembers of the free-and-reduced-price lunch at Providence public schools.

Fischer is still looking at him like he expects Alex to respond. “Uh, no,” Alex manages.

Something about that makes Fischer laugh, loud enough that Stephanie looks up from her phone. “You both ready?” she asks.

Fischer gives an enthusiastic nod. Alex doesn’t growl. Well, he might, but he also spent yesterday’s game with his knees in the dirt before driving ten hours to be here, so he’s earned it.

An interviewer comes in, a red-haired woman who introduces herself as Kimberly Montgomery. She shakes both their hands.

“Jake Fischer,” Fischer says. Unnecessarily. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She turns to Alex, a slight Who the hell are you? expression knitting her eyebrows.

“Alex Angelides. I also got called up today.”

She shoots a look over at Stephanie like there’s been some mistake. Alex should just get up, let them interview Jake about his eventual superstardom. At least he can take his anger out on the weight room.

He’s about leave when Fischer says, “Good thing Alex is a catcher.” Alex. Like they’re friends. He must sense Alex’s confusion. “Just, you know, one of us should have a slow heartbeat. I’ve been trying not to throw up from excitement all day.” The kind of self-deprecation other people must find charming.

And Alex can’t leave, especially when Fischer’s declaration segues into a question about how they’re both feeling having gotten the call.

“I’m sorry it happened this way,” Fischer says, gravely. “The game’s better with Braxton playing in it.” Charlie Braxton, the Elephants ace pitcher, now out for the season with an elbow injury that’ll require surgery and extensive rehab, leaving a Fischer-sized gap on the roster.

“But you must be pretty excited,” Kimberly prompts.

Fischer’s grin returns. “Best day of my baseball life. So far, anyway.” It’s possible he winks.

Now Alex wants to throw up too. At least that takes his mind off being nervous. He tries to summarize how the last day has felt: that he busted his ass to be here. That he drove all night, literally, and would again. That he’s trying not to think about playing in front of thirty thousand people, because if he does, that slow heartbeat of his will start beating a lot faster.

“It’s exciting,” Alex grits out. Whatever. They’ll probably edit around him.

“Why don’t you tell the folks in the Bay Area a little more about yourselves. Let them get to know you.” Kimberly smiles. “Jake, get us started.”

“Don’t know that there’s much to tell. I grew up in Maryland right outside DC…” He continues with the story of his life that everyone in baseball knows. Two parents, a suburban house. Drafted out of high school as a high-ceiling, high-value prospect who signed for a check with a lot of zeros on it.

“I’m really grateful to my mom and dad for supporting me through everything,” Fischer says. Like there’s any getting through necessary for that kind of insulated existence. “I just feel really lucky to be sitting here today talking with you.” An endorsement smile to go with it.

Kimberly looks like she’s about to ask Fischer a follow-up question when he nudges Alex with his elbow.

“Yes”—Kimberly gives Fischer an indulgent smile—“Alex, tell us a little about yourself.” With an unstated But keep it brief.

Alex focuses on the unblinking eye of the camera and not how Fischer’s looking at him, or how his jersey makes his eyes very green, or the sweep of his light brown eyelashes. Harmless. Infuriating.

Alex’s back is stiff; his heart comes in a dull thud. He wanted them to acknowledge he’s here. Now that he’s got it, he wants to tell everyone to fuck off. Himself, most of all, for thinking that his first day would go anything but disastrously. He tries to condense the facts of his life to something palatable for TV, to summarize his childhood without saying car accident or foster care or adoption, when Fischer says, “That was some game you called yesterday.”

For a second, Alex thinks he’s talking to someone else. “Didn’t think they televised minor-league games.”

Fischer lifts a shoulder. “Caught the highlights. How’d you decide to be a catcher?”

A decision that wasn’t really a decision. “My Little League coach asked who wanted to try catching. When no one volunteered, he convinced a couple of us to gear up, then tossed pitches and told us to grab them out of the dirt. I guess I complained the least. So here I am.”

Fischer’s mouth twitches at that. His lips aren’t bad, reddish and unchapped like he’s vigilant about lip balm. Not that Alex has opinions about that kind of thing while he’s in a clubhouse. “Don’t think I could do that. Pitchers—we can be a little high maintenance.”

Some of Alex’s annoyance dissolves. “I’ve noticed. I’m excited to work with the Oakland pitching staff.” A baseball soundbite he actually means.

Kimberly clears her throat like she’s reminding them they’re being videoed, and asks if their parents are coming to see them play.

“My mom booked the tickets before I could finish telling her I got called up,” Fischer says. “It’ll be cool to pitch with them here.” A smile to go with it, though a shade dimmer than the previous ones he’s aimed at the camera.

A silence, one Alex should fill; he goes for the easiest version of things. “My family’s coming out too.”

Which is enough for Kimberly to move onto the next question, even if Fischer glances over like he noticed Alex being vague. “What players did you model yourselves after growing up?” she asks.

Fischer gives another media smile. “There are a lot of really talented guys in the league, but the one I probably studied the most was Koufax.”

Her eyebrows lift slightly. “Most players don’t go back a generation. Why him in particular?”

If Alex didn’t know better, he’d think something hardened in Fischer’s smile. “You know, good curveball.” He nods to Alex. “How about you?”

From there, it’s an interview, Alex grunting answers, Fischer making jokes at his own expense. The clock reads noon when Kimberly finally tells them they’re done. Fischer hops up, thanks her, unclips his mic battery from his waistband, a move that comes with a brief display of the muscles of his lower back.

Alex undoes his own and is about to go find the weight room when Fischer makes a frustrated noise. He smiles when Alex looks over at him, like he’s embarrassed to be caught being anything less than megawatt-level happy. Except he’s picking at the cord for his mic pack, now an intractable tangle, skinny cable tightening with each effort to loosen it. He looks nervous, as if a tangled mic cord matters.

“Here.” Alex reaches for the pack, which Fischer hands over, then unpicks the wire until the snarls come loose, the way he undoes his cousin Evie’s shoelaces when she quadruple-knots them.

“Thanks, man,” Fischer says, when Alex sets the pack down on a chair. He sounds slightly too relieved given the circumstances.

“No problem. I have to do that for audio cables all the time.”

Fischer’s eyebrows rise.

“I’m in a band. Was in a band,” Alex says.

“Were you guys any good?”

“Not really.”

Fischer laughs at that, a flash of his straight white teeth that makes Alex press his tongue to his own crooked lower incisor.

Nearby, the caterers are laying out the pregame buffet. Alex’s stomach reminds him that he hasn’t had anything to eat since he got road food the night before, rumbling audibly.

Fischer smiles what would be a smirk except for the slight scrunching of his nose. He has freckles, a scattering of them across light olive skin. “You wanna see if the food here is as good as guys say it is?”

Alex studies the long line of chafing dishes, the cook-to-order station set up at one end. “You think they’d make me an omelet?”

“It’s our call-up day. I don’t think they’re allowed to say no to us. C’mon, let’s go find out.”

*

The Elephants say no to Alex later that day. No to his being in the lineup. No to if he should get ready to pinch hit. No to if he should do anything other than sit on the high-backed dugout bench and try not to let his eyeballs fall out of his head staring at everything.

He’s played in stadiums before, but never one as immense as Elephants Coliseum. Played with pro ballplayers, but none who feel as impressive as his teammates do, their uniforms tailored and not the drapey minor-league ones he wore as of a day ago. They feel older, even though some are his age at twenty-four, like they’ve gotten the full complement of adulthood that comes with a big-league contract. He resists the urge to tap his spikes against the concrete dugout floor like an impatient kid.

He migrates from the dugout bench to the railing, from the railing to the dugout bench, a circuit he repeats enough that John Gordon—Oakland’s star player who’s been in the bigs for ten years and shows no signs of slowing—tells him to give it a rest. Gordon’s slightly shorter than Alex expected him to be, but no less imposing, his jersey sitting on his broad shoulders like he was born to wear it, his brown skin deepened from a decade of sun exposure.

“First-game jitters are no joke,” Gordon says. Which is more charitable than he needs to be, given that even acknowledging Alex’s existence is more charitable than he needs to be.

“How’d it go for you?” Though Alex should probably know that, given Gordon’s status on the Elephants. Another thing he feels unprepared for.

Gordon shrugs. “Went oh-for-four. Got booed.” Not exactly a reassurance, except for the casual way he says it, like those past offenses slid right off his veteran-player shoulders.

Alex does give it a rest. Or tries to, fidgeting without fidgeting. He’s scanning the pristine sleeve of his uniform for loose threads when Courtland, their manager, bellows a directive. Courtland is Alex’s height, scrawny with time-withered muscle mass, a voice like a megaphone and a temper like a cartoon alarm clock. His size doesn’t keep Alex—who people occasionally crossed the street to avoid when he had all his piercings—from being slightly afraid of him.

“Tell Fischer to get up and working,” Courtland yells.

No one moves. The shout was aimed in Alex’s general direction but not—he thought—at him. Unless he’s supposed to get on the bullpen phone as some rookie rite of passage. Sweat begins to prick along the back of his neck.

Courtland hollers again, and Alex turns, trying to act like he’s reaching for a handful of seeds, when their pitching coach brushes past him to get at the phone, then barks Fischer’s name into it.

At least one of them will get to play. Because it’s Alex’s first game—but it’s Fischer’s First Game. Alex tries to swallow his disappointment and manages to nearly choke on a sunflower shell.

He migrates to the dugout railing to watch. Fischer runs in for the fifth inning, carrying the attention of thirty thousand spectators on his broad shoulders. He grins like this is a Little League game. The scoreboard briefly transforms to show video, its caption advertising his debut. A camera pulls in, showing his TV-ready smile as he rosins his hands and begins his warmup pitches. The team clearly wanted to make a big deal out of this—a video package plays clips from their interview earlier, Alex’s answers carefully excised.

Somewhere in a crowd of green-jerseyed fans, Alex’s aunt and cousin are waiting for him to play. He gave Sofia a wad of bills before the game, like he could remedy all the lean times by paying for ballpark snacks. Marianne didn’t come with them, not able to miss work. Alex considers how he might introduce them to the team—this is my Aunt Sofia, who adopted me after my dad died in a car accident. This is Sofia’s girlfriend, Marianne. This is my cousin Evie, who’s Marianne’s biological daughter. A family at odds with Fischer’s whole apple-pie-and-mom persona, one that’s too messy to explain in scoreboard clips.

Out on the mound, Fischer completes his warmup pitches, readying himself to confront the hitter, who comes into the batter’s box with a show me whatcha got, kid look. Fischer shows him, a fastball so good someone near Alex whistles. Followed by a biting changeup. Then a big hooking curveball, and the guy slinks back to his dugout on a three-pitch strikeout with considerably less swagger. Another batter, then another, and Fischer sits them down like it’s no harder than breathing.

Afterward, he comes to the dugout. The big leaguers ignore him as a form of congratulations; their coaches shake his hand, an indication his relief appearance is over. He grins stadium-bright as he posts up next to Alex.

Alex should say something, even if what he wants to say is I want to play too. “That was some pretty good pitching,” he offers.

“Thanks, man.” Fischer doesn’t move away from him; he’s standing close enough that their shoulders brush. “Feels weird to be here. I didn’t think it would, but that third deck”—he shakes his head disbelievingly—“it’s like being at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Yeah.”

“They tell you when you’re going in?” Fischer asks. As if it’s guaranteed that Alex will get to play. As if coaches and managers are in a rush to accommodate him.

“Nope.”

Maybe Fischer senses his unease, or maybe he’s just thirsty, because he gets Alex a Gatorade along with one for himself, then raises his cup in a mock toast. “Us rookies gotta stick together.”

“All right.” Alex drinks his Gatorade and Fischer sips his own. They stand there for a while, watching the game, Alex’s pulse jumping every time Courtland yells. An inning later, he’s resigned himself to spending his first big-league game on the bench. It sucks. Sofia is very into him naming how he’s feeling, then taking that out on something—a sledgehammered wall, his guitar, a baseball—things he can’t do standing in a dugout. So he stews, shoulders getting stiffer and stiffer until—

“Angelides, get up.” A holler from Courtland. Simple as that: he’s about to go pinch hit in the majors. Alex scrambles his bat from a cubby, his heart a drum set as he takes his practice swings in the on-deck circle.

Fischer was right. It feels like standing at the bottom of the ocean, a sea of fans looking down at him, possibly wondering who the hell he is or possibly not caring, as he makes his way to the batter’s box.

The field looks bigger than the one he played on yesterday, even if the dimensions are exactly the same—ninety feet between each base laid out in a perfect diamond. From sixty feet and six inches away, the pitcher comes set.

Something in his stance rankles Alex’s nerves, maybe the casual way he’s looking at Alex as if to say Whoever this rook is, I’ll show him how we do it in the bigs.

Alex gathers himself, bat defiant on his shoulder. He almost smiles when he sees the pitch: a fastball, big as a grapefruit. He plants his feet and twists his hips, then makes contact, a pleasing reverberation down his arm, roping a single into right field. He runs—well, catcher runs—to first base and tries not to stare up at the stadium. Tries to keep his heart slow in his chest as the scoreboard announces, Alex Angelides, first big-league hit.

His pulse hasn’t quite settled when the inning ends and he jogs back to the dugout.

The veterans ignore him—a compliment made even better when Fischer grabs a towel and pretends to wipe him down, as if Alex worked up a sweat standing on first.

“Stop.” Alex laughs and shoves the towel away, which only makes Fischer do it more.

“I’m pretty sure that someone got the ball.”

Right, the ball, something Alex can encase in plastic and save. Something no one can ever take from him.

That floating feeling carries him through the next inning, Fischer next to him, chattering about how exciting everything is, an enthusiasm that spills over into Alex. That he’s here. That he fucking made it.

The feeling gets pierced when Fischer adds, “Sorry about the interview earlier.”

Alex’s shoulders rise. “What about it?”

“It’s your first game too. They could’ve planned better.”

“Didn’t mean to intrude on your spot.”

Fischer turns to him, forehead scrunching slightly, eyes green in the fading evening light. “I meant, they should have known like…who’s on the roster.” It’s clear that he’s trying to avoid saying who you were. Like he doesn’t know that the team—hell, the whole baseball world—is liable to treat them differently.

Alex revises his assessment of Fischer—Jake—to the kid who probably did everyone else’s work on the group project. Infinitely worse than just disliking him. Enough to make Alex a little dizzy.

The game winds down. The rest of the team retreats to the clubhouse to confront the media about their win. Alex turns to leave, but Jake’s still standing there, still gripping the dugout railing with his big pitcher hands. He nods up to the emptying stadium. “This how you imagined it?”

Alex considers the adrenaline blur of the last twenty-four hours now tipping into tiredness. How he can’t wait to get up tomorrow and do it all again. “Nah, it’s better.”

Jake’s smile isn’t like any of the others he’s aimed at Alex, softer at the edges. “I hope it all stays just like this.” 

If you enjoyed this sneak preview, be sure to check out DIAMOND RING!